Iken? comments

I moved back here to Australia in April due to radiation concerns for my young daughter after a long time living in Japan. The only thing here that is cheaper than in Japan is meat. Everything is overpriced, the cost of living is very high, service is non-existent, drugs and crime are running out of control, guns are readily available to criminals, you can't travel on public transport after dark, unless in a group, for safety reasons. I could go on, but can't be bothered, lol I'm fast becoming an Aussie again.

Never paid em, never will. Collectors are way too rude and aggressive ( but it is fun putting them in their place :-) ). Too many of their employees caught with their pants down ( some literally ). By the way, how many book stores and other types of stores are there that sell NHK products. Difficult to even imagine. They're always crying pauper, but the profits from just the byproducts of their programming is enormous. No good reason to pay them at all in my book.

Well said Cleo, and not just in Japan. It happens all the time in countries that use English as their first language,too.

And the companies making commercials in your home country herefornow have never used puns, misspellings, distortions of language, etc... to sell their products? Common practice.

The majority of businesses all over the world do similar things all the time. It's only the degree that differs here. I'm pretty sure that if you look carefully into any high level business person's history, you'll find evidence of under the table deals etc... It's not just Japan. Politics is the same and the two go hand in hand. Just sour grapes on the part of the sacked.

vg866 - have a look a little under the post you quoted GENIUS. I fixed that to be clearer. The Korean maps showing the islands as Japanese actually go back 200 years.

Before the Japanese invasion Gobshite. I should've been clearer.

The islands were actually classed as Japanese in Korean text books before WW2. The fighting over ownership only started after they discovered the riches in the land surrounding said islands. This matter needs to be settled in court before it escalates any more. Netninja, you need to get help and stop playing your war games on your pc, or playstation, or whatever. I think they are unbalancing you.

Fact - They were, until recently, considered to be a cult. Fact - They, like any other group of their like, have ulterior motives for most of what they do in the public eye. Fact - I didn't say that what they did in the disaster areas they were in wasn't welcome. Fact - Their information is to be looked at carefully due to their interests.

A survey of 700 students out of how many in Tohoku? And only 511 completed the survey. 189 smart people told the religious nutters to go away. The soka gakkai was only recently recognised as a religion. It was seen as a cult until certain famous people from T.V. etc... became members. It's a cult with strong political connections. I believe nothing that comes from these people, they have ulterior religious and political motives for every thing they do.

Ridiculous rubbish. A person is either a man or a woman. If they get their gender changed, fine, then they can go with that, but their is no "X" gender. Once again the Australian government is trying to prove that they are up with the times by making stupid laws. The country is rife with them. And yes, I am Australian.

Well yeah. It's Japan. If you can't speak the language, get someone to do it for you. If you have nobody like this to turn to, you shouldn't be there anyway.

Agreed Suzuki-san. People never learn from the past. We only have to look at it to see that, and every country in the world is the same in this regard. People will always move back into areas like this in the hope that it just won't happen to them. Governments can't stop people from living where they always have, but they should stop companies from rigging their own reports and profiting from such lies, as TEPCO has.

Kan did as much as he was able to do, as honestly as he was able to do it. He was stymied at every turn by the politicians who had actually allowed TEPCO to do as they liked, and worked behind closed doors with said company for many years, while they jockeyed for political power and positions in a time of crisis. Kan is as honest as a politician can be. He has a long history of honesty.This honesty unfortunately doesn't allow him to be a "great politician". As for saying that the foreigners may come in, all countries would do the same thing. Can you imagine America or Russia, for example, allowing foreigners into their installations. All countries would try to get their spies into such teams as they would send. Sending in the 60 years old and over was also the correct move. The health ramifications of thyroid cancer being much less than those for younger people. Get off Kan's back people. He did as much, and possibly more than he was allowed to do.

The puppet master (Ozawa), and the puppet ( Hatoyama - puppeteer = his wife) deciding Japan's future. Another step backwards to protect the ingrained politician's bank accounts and power base.

Actually, if he said that they were disputed waters, he'd be admitting that China had some kind of claim on these islands. Not a good idea if it goes to the courts.